Chapter 2 - THE BLOOD-STAINED ROSARY
The silence at the table grew so heavy it felt hard to breathe.
Massimo’s question hung in the air. Is she well?
He had expected anger from his sons. He had expected demands for money, or a bitter recounting of a hard life. He had not expected the sudden, devastating grief that fractured Teo’s watchful face.
Rafael reached into his leather jacket. His hand was trembling, just slightly, betraying the iron-clad composure he had worn since walking through the restaurant doors.
He placed something on the pristine white linen tablecloth, right next to Massimo’s untouched silver fork.
It was a silver rosary. The beads were worn smooth from years of prayer, but the silver cross at the end was warped, as if someone had stepped on it with a heavy boot. And tangled in the delicate chain was a dark, dried substance that Massimo recognized instantly.
Blood.
"She was well," Rafael said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Until three days ago. Now, we don't know if she’s even alive."
Massimo stared at the rosary. The world tilted on its axis. He recognized that cross. He had given it to Renata twenty years ago, on a rainy Tuesday in Brooklyn, a lifetime before he became the ruthless ghost that haunted this city. She had sworn never to take it off.
"Who did this?" Massimo’s voice wasn't loud, but it carried a lethal, icy promise that made Dario, standing ten feet away, immediately reach for his sidearm. "Give me a name, and he won’t see tomorrow’s sunrise."
"We don't know his name," Teo said quietly. "Mom always worked late shifts at the bakery. Three nights ago, she didn't come home. We went looking for her. We found the back door of the shop smashed in. There was a struggle. This rosary was on the floor, kicked under a flour sack."
"You went to the police?" Massimo demanded.
"The police?" Rafael laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. "The detective who showed up took one look around, picked up a shell casing from the floor, put it in his pocket, and told us she probably ran off with a new boyfriend. He didn't even file a report."
Massimo’s jaw locked. A corrupt cop. That meant this wasn't a random robbery. This was a hit, orchestrated by someone with enough money to buy the precinct.
"There’s something else," Teo said, leaning closer. "Before the detective kicked us out of the bakery, I saw something carved into the wooden counter. It looked like someone did it with a pocket knife in a hurry. Just two letters."
"What letters?"
"V. M."
Massimo’s blood ran cold.
V.M.
Vincent Maroni.
It made no sense. Vincent Maroni wasn't a rival boss. He wasn't an enemy. Vincent Maroni was Massimo’s underboss. His oldest friend. The man who had been running Massimo’s legitimate shipping businesses for fifteen years.
"That's impossible," Massimo said, his mind racing. "Maroni has no reason to touch Renata. He didn't even know she existed."
"Are you sure about that?" Rafael challenged, his dark eyes flashing. "Because the night before she disappeared, Mom was terrified. She was digging through old boxes. She told us that if anything ever happened to her, we needed to find you. She said, 'The ghosts finally figured out who I am.'"
Massimo felt a physical ache in his chest. Renata had known they were coming. She had spent nineteen years hiding, and someone in Massimo’s inner circle had finally hunted her down.
But why? If Maroni wanted to hurt Massimo, he would have come for him directly. Taking a woman from his past—a woman Massimo hadn't seen in two decades—was a dangerous, messy gamble. Unless she had something Maroni wanted.
Massimo reached out and picked up the rosary. As his thumb brushed against the warped silver cross, he felt something catch.
The back of the cross wasn't flat. It was loose.
He turned it over. The impact of whatever had crushed the silver had popped a hidden hinge. It was a locket. Massimo had never known it was a locket.
He pried the silver backing open with his thumbnail.
Inside, folded into a square so small it required tweezers to handle, was a piece of parchment paper.
Massimo carefully unfolded it on the tablecloth.
It wasn't a note. It was a string of bank routing numbers. And beneath them, stamped in faded blue ink, was the insignia of the Maroni family crest.
Massimo stared at the numbers. They were offshore accounts. Millions of dollars.
"She wasn't just hiding from you," Massimo whispered, the realization hitting him like a freight train. "She was stealing from them."
Before the boys could process the shock of those words, a familiar voice echoed across the empty dining room.
"It’s a shame, really. She was a beautiful woman, Massimo."
Massimo looked up.
May you like
Standing in the entryway of the restaurant, flanked by six heavily armed men, was Vincent Maroni. He was smiling.
And standing right beside him, his gun drawn and pointed directly at Massimo’s chest, was Dario.
